Chapter 536: The Calm Before the Storm
The nerd stared at Moon’s pillar through his glasses, his lips pressing together.
After a long pause, he spoke slowly.
"We might’ve underestimated him. Those previous two eliminations likely didn’t cost as much mana as I assumed."
He squinted at the glow emanating from Moon’s pillar.
"Those runes are definitely high-level. The quality of the inscription. The aura sheen. He’s spending a significant amount of his own reserves to activate them. I don’t think he can use another one. Two is already pushing it. Three would be courting death."
The pink-haired spectator nodded slowly, satisfied with the explanation. He turned his attention back to the arena floor.
Just in time to see Moon pull a third rune from his pocket, and press it firmly into the surface of his pillar.
"WHAT THE—"
The pink-haired spectator’s voice cracked.
"He just used another one! That’s THREE!"
He whipped his head around toward the nerd.
"HYPER-ANALYSIS! Explain!"
The nerd stared at Moon’s pillar.
His glasses slid slightly down the bridge of his nose. He didn’t push them back up.
He opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again.
"I... I don’t know."
His voice came out small.
The nerd had been defeated. The confidence of yesterday had completely abandoned him. He looked at the pink-haired spectator with the helpless expression of a scholar whose entire model of the world had just been shattered by a single observation.
"He shouldn’t be able to do that. He should be—" The nerd waved his hand vaguely toward Moon. "He should not be standing."
The pink-haired spectator stared at him.
"So what’s your take?"
The nerd’s shoulders slumped.
"My analysis is that I am no longer qualified to analyze this person. I retire from analyzing him. This monster is breaking the rules of logic and I refuse to participate in this discussion any further until I have substantial evidence."
He slid down slightly in his seat, his hands going up defensively.
"Don’t ask me anything else. I’m done."
The pink-haired spectator burst into laughter.
"You’re done?! You can’t be done! You’re the hyper-analysis guy!"
"I retire. I am no longer hyper-analysis guy. I am regular guy now. Regular guy who watches stuff and does not understand them."
The pink-haired spectator laughed harder.
A few of the other spectators in the surrounding rows had been listening to the exchange. They were also looking at Moon’s pillar with the same confusion. A mage using three high-level runes without collapsing was rewriting their understanding of what was possible for a competitor at his rank.
***
Moon stood up calmly from his crouch. The three runes were hidden beneath his feet, the array now fully active and humming quietly.
He had placed three enhanced runes in total. Two of them were defensive, layered into the surface of the pillar itself. The first was a physical dispersion array that would absorb and scatter the force of incoming projectiles before they reached the pillar’s core structure.
The second was a mana barrier inscription that would intercept ranged spells and redirect their energy back into the array itself, recycling enemy mana into more durability for his own position.
The third rune was offensive. A delayed-release trap array that would activate the moment any presence besides his own, stepped in the vicinity of his pillar. Anyone trying to scale his position for a close-range strike would walk into powerful strikes.
His mana was still very high. The three runes had consumed a decent chunk of his reserves, but nowhere near the amount that the spectators or the other competitors were calculating. His Runemaster skill cut the mana cost of rune activation dramatically. What would have crippled an ordinary mage barely made a dent against his pool.
The people watching him couldn’t see his actual mana levels. They could only guess based on what they expected mages of his rank to be capable of. Their estimates were wrong, but he was content to let them stay wrong.
He could have faked symptoms of mana drain. Slight unsteadiness, faint body tremors. Any of those would have reinforced their assumption that he was now operating on fumes, encouraging certain competitors to push him while he appeared vulnerable.
But he didn’t need to.
After Alaric’s revelation last night about the River of Paths and the super lives, Moon had decided to begin slowly revealing his arsenal.
He wasn’t planning on doing it recklessly and at once, but rather at important moments and in small chunks, unless the situation demanded it.
Moon could only hide his ace cards for so long. The more powerful he grew, the more eyes he attracted. The Association already knew about him, the dark organization already wanted him dead.
And the major factions were tracking his progress.
There was no longer much value in pretending to be weaker than he was.
The only reason he was holding back his close-range capabilities at this exact moment was the dark organization’s pending attack.
His new B-Rank sword, coupled with his various close-range skills remained hidden. He wanted his ace cards held in reserve until the moment the attack came. The dark organization had likely studied his broadcasts from yesterday.
They knew about the blue fire, purple lightning and his basic close range capabilities. But they didn’t know about the rest.
When they struck, that surprise factor would be the difference between his survival and his death.
’They still haven’t made a move.’
Moon’s eyes drifted across the arena casually, his senses extended outward as far as they could reach.
Everything around looked completely normal with no sign of an impending threat that could arrive at any moment. It was the calm before the storm.
A handful of the more powerful competitors had been watching Moon since the round began.
Some of them were already envisioning the future stages. They knew that facing the dark horse eventually was inevitable. All of them recognized that the longer they allowed him to move freely, the more dangerous he would become.
The opportunity to damage him now, while he was supposedly low on mana, was the kind of opening they couldn’t afford to ignore.
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